The third Saint Beast has almost no presence in the plot; in fact, he could easily have been removed from the story arc with little effect. His only role is to kill the second Saint Beast (Who had apparently been killed by Kuwabara moments before; had he been actually dead, no one would have complained), and then be killed by Hiei in one of the shortest fights in the series. However, it all makes sense once you realize that Hiei was originally supposed to be a one-shot villain, but became so popular that the author wrote him back into the story. In order to do so, the author had to make last-minute changes to the plot so that Hiei would have something to do — and since all of this was added in at the last minute, neither Hiei nor the Saint Beast he fights have much effect on the plot of that story arc.

Makes sense. Although I assume Seiryu would still need to appear if Hiei hadn't been brought back as he and his fellows were based on these constellations.

In the anime, Seiryu did serve the purpose of showing that while he has been a cold blooded killer, Hiei still has honor, and doesn't take kindly to killing a comrade. If anything, Hiei is loyal.

Hiei could also be angry against an ice-user since he was abandoned by a tribe of ice apparitions.

This troper thought the same, that Byakko's survival level went to ridiculous extremes and his actual death is so sudden and unexpected that one expects him to rise back up again like he did before, that and it's a total Ass Pull to suddenly show Hiei has honor at the expense of Kuwabara's character, further cementing his status as the Butt-Monkey who never wins any fights.

Never wins? Byakko was already dying and needed a bit of Seiryuu's energy to survive. I'd say Kuwabara had won handily.

And there's, you know, him beating Risho and elder Toguro and Sea Man, plus some demon mooks at Tarukane's compound and on the boat to the tournament.

Why would a tournament that encourages "winner via killing" and also only allows ONE substitute per team no matter what make it MANDATORY that there be five people on each team in the FINALS or face instant DQ?

To make it exceptionally rare that anyone actually wins said tournament, thereby avoiding having to actually give out the promised "Anything you ask for with no exceptions" prizes the winner is supposed to receive. Big promise gets people to enter, technicalities keep anyone from winning, no prize is handed out, sorry, better luck next time. Classic scam.

Actually (at least in the anime dub), the team only had to have all 5 members if they hadn't already used a sub. A team that had lost members and subbed someone in could still compete, but a team who had not yet made a substitution needed five people.

Who said that and when did they say it? Because this troper doesn't remember ever hearing that being said despite multiple repeat viewings. Also, it makes no sense when you consider that in a competition as brutal and cutthroat as the Dark Tournament, multiple teammate deaths are likely the norm, making finding more team members to take their place even more difficult.

Juri says it when she checks the rulebook. The exact line is "Since it is the final and neither team has used their substitution..."

On this subject, who else was on Toguro and Genkai's team and where are they now?

I always assumed that Genkai was actually the fifth member of Team Toguro, and that the other three were just kept on for fifty years.

The tournament rules make it clear that the winning team only needs to win three out of five matches. Three members of the team are alive when the anime takes place: Genkai, Younger Toguro, and Elder Toguro. The other two members likely died in the final round.

But if the above speculation is true and they did survive, then one wonders what their wish was.

Possibly they, like Genkai, wished not to be bothered again. Karasu and Bui were not among them; they were defeated and enslaved by Toguro after he became a demon.

Interesting this isn't mentioned yet, but when Rando was killed off, it is very likely all ninety-nine of the techniques he stole are now lost. Sure, it may be a good thing some of them won't be learned again, but it's a bit tragic to think how many unique moves vanished in one kill and how meaningless the slain trainers' lives were.

Rando wasn't killed, he was just knocked out while shrunk and immediately tied up in his own web and shipped to the Reikai.

Yukina and Hiei are confirmed to be twins in the Three Kingdoms arc. It's stated that the Ice Maidens/Koorime reproduce asexually every hundred years. It's also stated in Kurama's internal narration that Hiei isn't old enough to remember the really bad stuff Mukuro's done in the past, and if Yukina had children, it's highly unlikely that they'd never be mentioned, given that family is important enough to both Hiei and Yukina that they each independently went on a quest to find the other. Therefore, Yukina is probably not yet of childbearing age. Hiei's voice is pretty deep, so they're probably both somewhere in the middle of youkai puberty.

From what I remember Koorime reproduce once every century. So the twins are probably past youkai puberty (or at their "teen" years to fit the human age frame) but not at that time of the century for reproducing.

^You mean "improbably". Please read Occam's Razor. For them to be well into their "teen"-equivalents would require Yukina's ovulation cycle to start significantly after puberty, developmentally speaking, which doesn't make sense. The big landmark of cis-female puberty is the ovulation cycle starting. With Ice Maidens, their ovulation cycle is a century long. Even if the whole species's ovulation cycles are synchronised, which is not actually indicated in the series, then logically Yukina and Hiei would have been born at around the same time as a whole bunch of other ice maidens, and thus would be hitting puberty at the same time as all the other ice maidens of that generation, and it only makes sense that said puberty would be timed to the species's ovulation cycle because that is what puberty is for. If you really want to plausibly put them in their teen-equivalents, it makes way more sense to have Yukina be using some sort of youkai birth control because she doesn't feel ready to be a mother yet.

Then again, Yukina and Hiei are only half Koorime, thus it is entirely possible that automatic reproduction was simply not one of the genetic traits passed down to Yukina, so she and Hiei could be adults. Or maybe, like real life animal hybrids, neither is capable of reproduction due to broken chromosomes. Though there is also the possibility that due to the inherent child creating nature of Koorime BOTH Hiei and Yukina could have that trait and still be children, because demons are weird.

Remember the scene where Sensui fell apart at the sight of female Youkai being used as Sex Slaves? That same fate was going to befall to Yukina. And a Koorime's jewel shines brightest when her child is born. If the Black Book Club had learned of this....let's be glad that Team Urameshi rescued her in time.

So, Yukina is prepubescent. Tarukane states something alone the lines of, "we tried everything" to get her to cry, but they eventually ran out of things that worked. Bringing in the Taguro brothers was his last resort because he couldn't think of anything else... Yukina was raped. Yukina was raped a lot. Being unable to bear children at such a young age is probably the only thing that saved her from having children back then. And that's a good thing, because can you imagine what would have happened to her children?

In the Anime Koto speculates that Kurama generated the tree out of thin air like that because he had planted seeds there thousands of years ago. Who is to say that Kurama didn't suggest Yomi host the tournament in that exact spot for that very reason. It'd suit Kurama's Crazy-Prepared personality.

During Raizen's flashback showcasing how he met the Lady Doctor (Yusuke's human ancestor and how the two of them are connected biologically) he's clearly on the run from a group of humans and is wounded. At first this may seem like Fridge Horror since you're wondering what sort of enemies was Raizen fighting in order to render him weak enough that he'd be on the run from a bunch of humans? But remember that Hokushin informed Yusuke that demon law (at least in Raizen's country) states that high level demons must wear an organic device that suppresses their power to minimum levels so they can get past the Kekkai Barrier. There are other methods but they aren't heavily elaborated on. Point being: Raizen may not have been at his best when he was wounded on Earth due to this method.

Though how old is the Kekkai Barrier anyway? It's relevant to the question if it existed when the Lady Doctor was still alive. If it's not elaborated in canon we'll have to give the above explanation a maybe.

During Genkai's succession tournament, she states that she cares not whether the champion will use her powers for good or evil, only that they win and her techniques can be passed on. At first, this makes Genkai come off as a cold sociopath. However, in retrospect, Genkai says this because it literally doesn't matter; nobody evil could receive Genkai's power. Genkai's final test before passing on her power is to determine both her student's morality and determination by proposing that they must kill her. If her student immediately refuses, they do not possess the determination to get stronger. If her student immediately complies, then they do not possess the responsibility to handle such power. Prior to her power transfer to Yusuke, Genkai was the third strongest being on Earth, behind only Sensui and Younger Toguro. Even in the highly unlikely event that the student would be able to kill Genkai, her secrets would die with her. Rando would have never succeeded Genkai in the first place.

So where does Kurama get all these fancy outfits that he wears over the course of the series? They can't be his mother's right? Forgetting how opulent they are, there's no way his mother wouldn't take note of the various gashes and blood marks on the clothing. Well that's obviously ruled out. It's far more likely that it's a combination of factors. As a thief Kurama has stolen many things over the course of his long life, so they might be left over clothing that he stored away somewhere and just has a lot of surplus. He's no doubt very rich from all his thieving, and likewise probably has a lot of treasure stashed away, so it wouldn't be surprising if Kurama actually purchased the clothing. Or since Kurama materializes a white shirt and pants, and shoes when he goes into his fox demon form then he might have the limited ability to materialize or "poof" the clothing into existence. Whatever the case, Kurama certainly likes to dress in style.

It seems like Kiyoshi Mitarai (the Sea Man) loses about a hundred IQ points when he becomes a "good guy." Apart from playing some tennis, he mainly just stands around and looks pretty for the entire rest of his appearances in the series, despite the fact that he's the only one who could have easily defeated Sensui in combat. His power is to use his blood to summon water-monsters from any existing water, which are invulnerable to normal attacks, and which can envelope you. When they do this, you're trapped in a separate dimension, made entirely of water, and can only get out if you have an attack that can break through dimensional barriers. We know that Sensui doesn't have such an attack, because if he did, he would have broken through the Kekkai barrier by himself, instead of needing to lure Kuwabara into doing it. So, why didn't Sea Man just create a large water monster with his blood, use it to envelope Sensui, and drown him within ten minutes? Seems that would have solved their Sensui problem pretty neatly, to the point where he couldn't have escaped like he did, especially since the first thing that Sea Man does after escaping from the Uraotoko is to land in a huge pool of water.

Sensui's parting words to Yusuke "I needed to collapse those boundaries between us and them, thus the tunnel, but then I saw you Urameshi. First demonized in a human's body, and then humanized in a demon's. You dissolved the barriers between us in ways I never imagined." equally apply to Kurama's life. He possesses a human's body in order to survive, and then slowly demonizes the human's body altering it into a demonic form that looks human but isn't. Then through interacting with humans he learns about love, honor, and compassion and the demonic mindset he lived by for untold centuries is eroded away at — making the ruthless bandit a loving, hardworking, and passionate young man to an equally kind mother. The humanized demon is then given a chance to return to his demon form and resume what he once was (demonized as a human) but then struggles with the idea that he can continue to remain as the good person he's become if he maintains that form, thus choosing to be human (humanized as a demon).

The naming conventions used among the main cast is interesting when viewed through the lens of Western and Japanese naming conventions. In the West you normally only call someone by their last name if you're very dismissive of them as an individual, and you're saying they're so low class that only their family name has any value. In Japan, by contrast, referring to someone by their last name is seen as a sign of respect since you're acknowledging that their family name brings them a sense of honor and worth. Kuwabara constantly referring to Yusuke as Urameshi and Yusuke constantly referring to Kazuma as Kuwabara is amusingly fitting in the lens of both concepts. Kuwabara and Yusuke both respect each other as rivals, hence the last name usage, but neither of them are ever openly affectionate enough around one another — even after becoming friends — that they feel comfortable referring to one another by their first names. In the case of Hiei, his clan abandoned him when he was born so he has no clan name to be addressed by. And in the case of Kurama, even though he has a human name, everyone respects Kurama enough that they can refer to him with such a familiar term.

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